He picked up a luminous fruit, turning it in his hands. "You're becoming a calculator, Kai. Trading your humanity for efficiency. It's a valid path. Many have taken it. They become excellent survivors. And then they become… nothing else. They lose the ability to want anything but survival. And then, one day, they walk into the grove and ask it to take them because being a perfect survival machine is terminally boring."
The words struck something deep in Kai. The emptiness he'd been feeling, the growing void where his emotions used to be.
"What's the alternative?"
"Balance." Alistair set the fruit down. "Your ability is a tool. A powerful one. But you are not the tool. You are the hand that wields it. Don't let the tool convince you that you are it."
"The system is rewiring my brain. It's not a choice."
"It's always a choice." Alistair's gaze was piercing. "Every time you use that ability to turn a person into a probability, you choose the tool over your humanity. Every time you feel disgust at a touch, and don't fight it, you choose. The Mending provides the pressure. You provide the bend."
Kai was silent for a long moment. Outside, through the openings in the trunk wall, he could see the dark, deadly grove stretching to the horizon. A world designed to break and remake them.
"Why did you request me?" he asked finally.
"Because Broken ones have a chance the corrected don't," Alistair said. "The system doesn't understand you. That means it can't fully control you. It can push, but you can push back. And we'll need those who can push back for what's coming."
"What is coming?"
"The second arena opens in one week," Alistair said. "A team event. The Heart Tree will send groups of ten. Your performance there determines your future path. The system is looking for leaders, for specialists, for components of a larger machine." He met Kai's eyes. "Silas and Vex are both building their teams. They'll want you. They'll pressure you. You'll have to choose who to stand with. Or," he added, "you could learn to stand on your own. Not as a solitary predator, but as a person who chooses his own path."
The choice felt heavier than any he'd faced in the grove.
"What do I do?" Kai asked, the question leaving him feeling strangely young, uncertain.
"For now?" Alistair smiled. "Rest. Eat. Find your companions. The Tree will provide training, resources. Use them. But always ask: who is this shaping me to be? And is that who I want to become?"
Kai left Alistair's platform with more questions than answers. He found Lena in the gardens, learning to coax faster growth from glowing fungi. She hugged him when she saw him, and this time, he didn't pull away. He focused past the aversion, on the memory of warmth, of connection. It was difficult. Like holding his hand in a flame.
But he did it.
She felt the tension in him. "You're fighting it."
"Trying to."
She touched his face, her hand cool against his skin. "Good."
He found Anya in the combat pits, sparring with her blade-armed instructor. She was already better, her movements sharper, more fluid. When she saw Kai, she broke away.
"They're forming teams," she said without preamble. "For the next round. Vex approached me. She wants us both."
"Silas will want us too," Kai said. "If he survived."
"He survived." Anya's expression was grim. "He arrived an hour ago. With three of his people. He's already claiming authority, saying his 'management experience' makes him the logical leader for the next phase."
Of course he had. The man was a cockroach.
"What do you want to do?" Kai asked her.
Anya flexed her hands, the bone blades extending and retracting. "I want to survive. Vex is strong. Her team has a better chance. But…" She hesitated, a crack in her pragmatic armor. "I walked with you two. That means something. Even here."
It was the closest to sentiment she'd come.
"We don't have to decide today," Kai said.
But they did. The pressure was already building. As they walked back to the residential areas, they saw Silas holding court in a common space, a dozen new arrivals listening intently. He saw Kai, and his gaze was a promise and a threat.
Vex watched from a higher walkway, her obsidian skin drinking the light. She gave no sign, but her attention was a weight.
That night, Kai lay on his moss bed, staring up at the glowing fruits hundreds of feet above. The Heart Tree hummed around him, a living, breathing entity. A cage. A school. A womb.
He accessed his Broken ability, not to simulate threats, but to run a different kind of calculation.
Path A: Join Silas. Become a component in a efficient machine. Lose autonomy, gain protection. Probability of surviving next arena: high. Probability of retaining any self-determination: low.
Path B: Join Vex. Remain with Anya. Follow strength. Probability of survival: moderate-high. Retain some autonomy.
Path C: Go alone. Or with just Lena and Anya. High risk. High autonomy.
Path D:… Something else. A path not yet visible.
His ability couldn't calculate Path D. It was undefined. A variable.
Alistair's words echoed: "You are not the tool."
For the first time since the sky cracked, Kai turned his ability inward. Not to analyze threats, but to analyze himself.
He saw the neural pathways being rewired, the empathy centers being dampened, the cold logic engines growing stronger. He saw the man he was becoming: a flawless, heartless survivor.
And he saw, buried deep beneath the changes, the ghost of who he was. A man who loved quiet mornings. Who hated cilantro. Who once cried at a stupid movie. A man who was, in all his flawed, inefficient humanity, alive.
The system called that broken. Something to be fixed.
Kai Mori made a decision.
He wouldn't let it.
He didn't know how yet. He didn't have a plan. But for the first time, he had a direction.
Not just survival.
Resistance.
A chime echoed through the Tree, soft but insistent. A notification appeared in his vision, gold and formal:
Orientation begins at dawn. Prepare for evaluation and team placement.
The Mending continues.
Kai closed his eyes. The Tree hummed around him. Somewhere below, Lena slept. Anya sharpened her blades. Silas plotted. Vex burned.
And somewhere out there, in the infinite arenas of the Mending, the game went on.
But for tonight, there was quiet.
And in that quiet, Kai Mori held onto a single, fragile, human thought:
I am not broken. I am becoming. And I will choose what I become.
It wasn't much. But it was a start